Review: Wreck-it Ralph

This fall, we’ve already seen two major motion pictures inspired by video games: Resident Evil: Retribution and Silent Hill Revelation 3D. Like most, it is generally accepted that those two did not deliver on making a film faithful to the realm of video games. But while those were not highly anticipated, there’s one video game film that many gamers have been looking forward to: Wreck-it Ralph. I got to see the film, which debuts in theaters nationwide tomorrow, early this week. Does this one deliver?

As I’m sure you all know by now, Wreck-it Ralph is a love letter to our favorite video games, retro and modern alike. It starts off with the titular character giving a monologue about his daily life: He is the villain of a retro arcade game called Fix-it Felix Jr. It shows us that life for arcade characters is not unlike that of theatre actors: During the day, they play their roles as the players control them, but when the arcade closes, they go off to their personal lives. So while Ralph plays a villain day in and day out, he’s not an inherently evil guy. Still, Fix-it Felix and the other characters in his game world constantly treat him like he is one. Of course, after thirty years Ralph gets fed up with this, and decides to leave his game to prove his worth as a protagonist by acquiring a medal in another game.

This journey takes him through two worlds: the Halo/Metroid inspired Hero’s Duty, and the Mario Kart homage Sugar Rush. However, far more time is spent in the latter than in the former, which may throw off some viewers- especially the kid audience this movie partially targets, who will probably not be interested in the Candy Land aesthetic. I think that, had there been a game world Ralph visits in between Hero’s Duty and Sugar Rush, the time would have been split up better. That said, the interludes in Litwak’s Arcade break things up nicely.

It should also be said that after the first act of the film, the cameos of beloved characters and references to classic games become few and far between. They’re a lot of fun at the beginning, but just don’t expect to see Ralph getting lunch with M. Bison or visiting the Mushroom Kingdom. Like the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, it chooses to use its plethora of cameos more to set the stage for its own unique story, which is all the better because of it.

I have to say that the animation is top-notch. Disney CGI films such as Chicken Little and Bolt tend to have sub-par visuals, but Wreck-it Ralph breaks this mold. I have friends who have mistaken it for a Pixar film, and it’s easy to see why: The amount of detail put into the environments is breathtaking. The dark, sci-fi world of Hero’s Duty and the contrasting candy cane vistas of Sugar Rush look spectacular, especially in 3D. The retro characters featured are given limited, jerky movements- a sly nod to the games of their era. At some moments, the film will even go full-on 8-bit, and look just as great there.

The writing is hit-and-miss. Some of the video game references are clever, including the graffiti found in Game Central Station and Kano ripping out a zombie’s heart. Others, though, (i.e. Leroy Jenkins and the Konami Code) are cringe-inducing to those of us who have been hearing them for years now. On that note, there are far too many candy puns in the second and third acts. Even as someone who likes cheesy jokes, these ones had me groaning pretty early on. But the interactions between the characters are where the humor really lies.

The performances by John C. Reilly, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, and Sarah Silverman are priceless. Reilly’s Ralph and McBrayer’s Felix share some especially witty dialogue which helps a great deal in building their characters. The romance between Fix-it Felix and Lynch’s Sgt. Calhoun, though, felt very forced. It seems like these days every movie has to have a love story somewhere, and it’s agitating when it feels out of place like it does here. On a brighter note, I love a movie with an over-the-top villain, and Alan Tudyk’s Candy King is just that: Eccentric, deceiving, and insane.

As with Disney movies of yore, this film has a lot of soul to it. While the trailers and early scenes paint her as more of an annoying sidekick character, Sarah Silverman’s character, Vanellope von Schweetz, is a prime example of things this film gets right. She is a glitch in her game(possibly inspired by Honey the Cat, a similarly girly arcade character from Sonic the Fighters who was only half-coded into the game) and despised by everyone else in its world, being forbidden from even entering a race. When Ralph sees this, he forms a legitimately heartwarming kinship with her. The end of her arc may be stereotypically Disney, but it all works much better than you’d expect. The theme this relationship represents, that even the strangest of people can be heroes, is instantly relatable for anyone who has ever felt like an outcast in their lives.

While most of the film does primarily take place in fictional games, Wreck-it Ralph is a video game movie through and through. As much as I enjoyed Super Mario Bros, this inspired film has brought games to the big screen better than any before it. Like in a game, the main character starts off as downtrodden and simple, but must go on a quest and face many different challenges across diverse worlds, meeting a plethora of memorable characters along the way, to become a hero. But outside of this typical video game format, the film has the heart of a good movie. This may not necessarily be a classic, but it’s one of the best movies to come out this year.

Score: